…how would you Hack Library School?

Video In The Library, or, How I Learned to Love My Unconventional Skill Set

Today’s Guest post comes from Amy Frazier, who just finished her first term with Emporia State University’s School of Library and Information Management in Portland, Oregon. Before entering library school, Amy studied film in London and taught film making skills to community members here in Portland. You can read more of her writing on her blog: Sidelong Citation and be sure to follow her on twitter: SidelongCite.

Photo Credit: flashbacks.com on flickr

I came to library school by way of film and video work. Prior to enrolling at Emporia State University SLIM-Oregon, the main thrust of my career was in documentary film making and education, teaching people how to make their own films and videos. It wasn’t the most obvious path to the stacks, even though to me the progression seemed natural. But it can be a challenge to find ways to make my existing skill set relevant to librarianship, so I spend a lot of time looking at the intersection between moving pictures and the library.

During my first term in library school, I got an opportunity to start digging into this a little bit by way of a class called “Theoretical Foundations of Service.” We got a group assignment to develop an information seeking behavior model related to a specific kind of library — visual libraries in the case of my group, which we narrowed down further to film and video archives and libraries. (There were two ex-film students in the group, which might explain the choice.)

A review of the literature didn’t provide a great deal of information – there were some good pieces about related fields like art libraries, but for moving pictures specifically there was very little. So as a next plan of attack, we decided to go straight to the authorities. We were very graciously granted interviews by two amazing librarians, Liz Coffey of the Harvard Film Archive and Mark Quigley of the UCLA Film and Television Archive . Based on those conversations, we gradually built up a picture of what an effective search would look like.

In a nutshell, it was… complicated. There were a number of factors that, while certainly not exclusive to film and video, represented unusually large obstacles. Collections tend to be quite isolated from each other and inaccessible from the world outside their home institutions; searches require pretty intensive mediation by a librarian who knows their collection well; and even under the best of circumstances, a search for motion picture items can be a long and uncertain endeavor. While the project gave me a new level of respect for the librarians and archivists doing this work, it was eye-opening to see how complex the process can be. Even with some idea of how to go about a search like this effectively, the prospect remains intimidating.

So that was my first brush with film and video in the library. Outside of school I work as a circulation assistant in the library of a large medical school/research hospital, and was lucky enough to be given a role on an existing video project developed by our User Experience librarian. It’s a relatively simple piece, a profile of the staff at our library and their philosophies of service and librarianship, but it’s an opportunity to demonstrate what video can do in the library. Now I’m looking around and seeing potential projects everywhere — some of the article databases are so confusing, what if we put together a video tutorial to help guide patrons through a simple search? We have students and researchers using library resources 24 hours a day, wouldn’t it be great to have that sort of resource available even when there isn’t a reference librarian in the house? Could video make these resources more accessible to that group of patrons that’s reluctant to come in and ask for help? It’s not a replacement for real reference instruction, but I think it could be a great supplement.

Film and video are of huge significance in our culture. They saturate society on every level, and as part of a collection they represent a visceral and engrossing link to both the past and the present. Used well, video can also constitute a useful and powerful tool to engage with patrons in an accessible and familiar medium. The point is that even a skill set as seemingly unrelated to the library as video production can turn out to have real and valuable applications. In fact, in a field where the educational foundation is pretty similar from institution to institution (at least among the ALA-accredited programs), it’s the skills that you don’t learn in library school that can set you apart.

Related

Nice Synopsis Amy! Thanks for highlighting this oft neglected facet of LIS.
I too come from a moving image background (television in my case) and am finding many intersections with LIS. I volunteer at a Media Archive and particularly with the amount of user generated content and mass of media produced every day, audio and video archive management is a growing field (see LoC A/C Center http://www.loc.gov/avconservation/packard/). The Association of Movie Image Archivists is a great resource and professional group (http://www.amianet.org/). I am on their ListServe and the support network and educational discussions are interesting and helpful (Liz and Mark’s names I know as they are active contributors). It is kinda neat just to hear what people all over the world are working on or trying to find.
As you adeptly highlighted there is great potential to use video as an educational tool and resource in more traditional library environments as well. I just completed a Digital Media class and was impressed by how much my classmates learned and were able to accomplish over the semester, with thoughts of how to utilize skills in their future or current library work. I would encourage all LIS students out there to investigate such a course for both personal and professional development.
Joanna

I completely agree; I’ve taught a lot of people how to do basic production, and one of the most satisfying experiences I’ve had is that moment when someone ceases to feel intimidated by the medium and really grasps what they can do with it.

I’m still trying to figure out how I fit into libraries, and how this particular skill might fit into my future work (whatever it turns out to be. ) But I’ve been pretty stunned and pleased that it looks like becoming a librarian is not a departure from filmmaking, but rather a kind of evolution.

Thanks for a great post! I love the idea of using AV as a way to engage and educate patrons as well as provide alternate avenues of research. As an AV archivist at a historical research library/archive, I can tell you that our AV collections don’t get nearly the amount of use that they should. Part of that is lack of awareness/lack of education on our part, and part is simply a lack of equipment to play obsolete/dying media formats. These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night

One library I know of that has been very active in using video productions to connect with patrons is the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU. They’ve made videos not just for the library, but for other campus services (maybe you’ve seen their library parody of the Old Spice ads?)- http://www.youtube.com/user/hbllproduction

“In a field where the educational foundation is pretty similar from institution to institution (at least among the ALA-accredited programs), it’s the skills that you don’t learn in library school that can set you apart.” –Words of wisdom. We truly must learn to embrace and leverage our outside skills. Thanks for a great post.

On the same topic, there is an interesting interview of David Lee King in Bibliotech show #10 (http://dquarium.com/bibliotech/bibliotech10). He talks about how libraries could use video to market themselves, I have found it very inspiring.

I listen to Daved Lee King every chance I get, and that was a great interview. Video is a medium for everybody, including librarians; I’ve heard of a few public libraries setting up small studios for public use, which is an idea I love love love. But even just getting libraries to a place where they’re producing their own little videos would be a great thing.